Such a method is known from the Application Note ‘Aduro™ AA01.2’ [-1-] from Protochips, Raleigh, N.C. 27606, USA.
The application note describes the heating of a sample (zinc oxide/alumina layers) on a MEMS heater (E-chip) in a SEM (Hitachi SU-6600 SEM). The heating is to a temperature in excess of 700° C. (appr. 1000 K).
When studying for example the phase transition of materials (metals) heating the sample is needed. The Aduro E-chip is a sample holder replacing the standard TEM grid. The E-chip comprises a monolithic ceramic membrane with a build-in heater. It can be heated to a temperature of over 1000° C. (appr. 1300 K).
The E-chip can be mounted in a special SEM stage, where it is contacted with electrical contacts. As an alternative is can be mounted in a side-entry holder for a TEM, so that heating experiments can be performed in a TEM.
It is unknown if the Hitachi SEM has a SSD in optical view of the heater. However, this is known from a similar use described in ‘High Temperature SEM Demo’ [-2-], where the Aduro heating stage is used in situ in a Nova NanoSEM 230 manufactured by FEI Company, Hillsboro, USA. This SEM comprises an in-lens BackScattered Electron Detector (BSED), the in-lens BSED a Solid State Detector in optical view of the sample.
Related to heating often also quenching is needed, that is: the rapid cooling of a sample to ‘freeze’ a condition of the sample.
The time in which the E-chip heats up or cools down is very small, in the order of a millisecond. Heating and cooling rates are more than 104 K/s when the E-chip is heated to approximately 1000 K in an environment at room temperature.
It is noted that the heating and cooling rate at temperature dependent as the amount of radiation emitted is strongly temperature dependent: P≈T4.
The heater of the E-chip is an Ohmic heater and the temperature of the E-chip is determined by measuring the resistance of the Ohmic heater.
The invention intends to provide an alternative method for measuring the temperature of a sample holder with a heater having a fast response time. More specifically it is an object of the invention to provide an alternative method to measure the temperature of the sample, and an alternative method to measure transients in temperature.